Reds Page #5

What difference does it make?

What do you think I've been doing?

Running around listening

to the sound of my own voice?

How do I know whose voice

you've been listening to?

Obviously you like it

a lot better than mine!

Look at me. Oh, God!

I'm like a wife.

I'm like a boring, clinging,

miserable little wife.

- Who'd wanna come home to me?

- Me!

Well, I can't do this!

I can't do this anymore!

You can't do what?

I'm just living in your margins.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

I don't know what my purpose is.

- Well, tell me what you want.

- I want to stop needing you!

I want you to know something.

I asked Whigham

if he'd send me to France.

- Is that what you want?

- That's what I want.

- What are you doing, Louise?

- I can't work around you.

Will you tell me why you're doing this?

I'm not taken seriously

when you're around.

When I'm around

you're not taken seriously?

Oh, God, this is not good.

You mean

you think I'm taken more seriously?

Is that what you're talking about?

Do you mean you're not?

Come on, Jack.

You know what I'm saying.

You're not being honest with me.

I don't know what you're saying.

You're not being honest with me.

Please, be honest with me.

I am so being honest with you.

Maybe if you took yourself a little more

seriously, other people would, too.

I told you what I thought

about the Armory piece.

I was honest about that.

I think it's very nice,

but no, I don't take it very seriously.

- Thank you.

- Why do you even expect

to be taken seriously if you're

not writing about serious things?

I don't understand that.

I found myself an apartment.

I'm looking for one.

I'm not even sure I know

what things you're serious about.

One day you're writing

about the railroads,

and you don't even finish the piece.

The next day you're doing a piece

on an art exhibition

that happened three years ago.

Look, why do you give me

anything to read, anyway?

If I criticize it at all,

you tell me you like it the way it is.

And when we're out with other people,

if somebody doesn't ask you

a direct question,

you tell me you feel ignored.

But with everything

that's happening in the world today,

you decide to sit down and write a piece

on the influence of the goddamned

Armory Show of 1913!

Are people supposed

to take that seriously?

Well, I don't really care!

- You care!

- I'm not really... I don't care!

- You care!

- I don't care!

And I'm not interested

in whether your stupid friends

- take me seriously or not!

- Well, they don't take it seriously.

That's why they don't take it seriously.

I found an apartment on Houston Street,

and I'm moving in.

And I'll tell you something else,

Jack Reed.

I don't think we like the same people

or the same kind of life.

- And I wanna be on my own.

- Go ahead, be on your own!

I don't give a damn!

You're on your own anyway.

Oh! I know you don't give a damn!

Well, will you tell me

why the hell I should give a damn?

You shouldn't! Don't give a damn!

- I don't give a damn, either!

- That's right! I don't give a damn!

- I'm getting out of here!

- Good, fine! I'm leaving, too!

Honey, can we just

get out of New York?

Let's go somewhere

and just write what we wanna write.

Provincetown was

just a tiny little fishing village.

And it was very, very conservative.

We'd take the Fall River steamer

up there, I remember, every summer.

We used to save fares

by sleeping in tiers.

And we always got bedbugs.

You did whatever you pleased up there.

And we put on some very

interesting plays, experimental plays

that a commercial theater

couldn't possibly do.

Take Susan Glaspell's Trifles.

There's a whole play

without the protagonist

even appearing on the stage.

And they gave three one-act plays.

One of them was a play by...

I always thought it was by John Reed

and Louise Bryant.

But I see it's by her.

They were in it.

The play was terrible,

and they were worse.

And of course, Gene O'Neill

was known as the poet,

but I liked his plays

better than his poetry.

Will you never understand?

Are you so stupid

that you do not know what I mean?

I am offering myself to you.

I am kneeling before you.

I have promised you my body,

my body that men have

found so beautiful.

I have promised to love you,

a negro sailor!

Tell them not to stand behind the moon.

Don't stand behind the moon.

- Back?

- Can you step back a little bit?

'Cause of the moon.

This is the moon here.

- This way?

- Yes.

Take it from "I hate the sea."

Will you never understand?

Are you so stupid

that you don't know what I mean?

I'm offering myself to you.

I'm kneeling before you.

I... I, who have had so many men

kneel before me,

I'm offering you my body,

my body that men have

found so beautiful.

I have promised to love you.

You, a negro sailor.

Is that not humiliation enough

that you must keep me waiting so?

Answer me, please! Answer me.

Will you give me that water?

I have no water.

Old Teddy wants this war, doesn't he?

I wonder how long it'll take the public

to find out he's a maniac.

Teddy Roosevelt has rabies.

Universal military training.

Jack, your second speech is out.

And the ironic part of it is

that poor people, they love him.

Sure, they do.

They'll take him up San Juan Hill again.

You can't touch the bunny suit.

It's rented.

Did you read the piece

on the convention?

If the left doesn't defend Wilson,

we're gonna get President Hughes.

Think we ought to go to St. Louis?

I am not going to St. Louis

to defend Wilson.

- I think we should.

- Why? What good would it do?

I don't know,

if you don't think Hughes would have us

in a war in a few months,

it wouldn't do any good at all.

Wilson's kept us out so far.

Reed thought that he was a good poet.

He was a terrible poet.

He thought that he could write

good novels.

Short stories.

Of course, he was a poet.

And not a great poet,

but some of it was very fine.

But, as a journalist,

Jack Reed topped them all.

- Look. Pull this up.

- Hey, Jack.

See? That's good.

Jack, your ride's here.

- Excuse me. I'll wait outside.

- Okay. Okay.

- Do you see what I mean? If one...

- Jack, the taxi's waiting.

Yeah, I got to run.

Bye, honey.

Jack Reed wanted to stir up trouble,

he wanted to stir up trouble

for the capitalists.

And he also wanted

to arouse the working masses

to the necessity of some

kind of effective united action.

In other words, I am accusing him

of either being a busybody

or of being a fraidy-cat,

not wanting to face things

of his own nature.

Dear Louise, St. Louis is very hot

and very crowded with Democrats,

all having a wonderful time

and wearing little paper hats

in anticipation of Wilson's nomination.

I'd like to think it's because

he doesn't want the United States

to go into the war,

but who knows

the mind of a Democrat?

By the way, I've decided to throw out

the poem on white lilies.

The rhyming scheme was wrong.

Maybe when I get back

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